Windows 11 keyboard layout

[ThierryL4]

Hello,
I use Parallels 18.2.0 on an iMac Intel with macOS 12.6.3. I have two Windows VM, one Win 10 and one Win 11.
While the Mac keyboard mappings are perfectly matched in the Win 10 VM, the Win 11 VM behaves as if it was a PC keyboard.

• The keyboard is French Mac. With many keys being differently placed from a PC keyboard. So, this is quite annoying.
• The display language is English in the two Windows VM.
• The Parallels Tools are installed on all VMs. I even reinstalled them on the Win 11 VM, just to make sure, without result.
• All articles which are mentioned online refer to Win 10, not Win 11. The language and keyboard settings are completely different in Win 11, compared to Win 10, and no article matches the Win 11 settings.
• There is no "Mac", "Apple" or "Parallels" option in the Win 11 settings. In fact, there is no "keyboard layout" option in Win 11 settings, just "languages" settings, which is quite disturbing.
• I have checked in the KeyboardLayoutSync is set to 1 in the config.pvs file for the Win 11 VM (I never touched those .pvs file but I just checked).

It is strange that no-one references Win 11 keyboard layout issue.
Any similar issue and solution?
Thanks

 

[Trishna Oobeyram]

Hello,
I use Parallels 18.2.0 on an iMac Intel with macOS 12.6.3. I have two Windows VM, one Win 10 and one Win 11.
While the Mac keyboard mappings are perfectly matched in the Win 10 VM, the Win 11 VM behaves as if it was a PC keyboard.

• The keyboard is French Mac. With many keys being differently placed from a PC keyboard. So, this is quite annoying.
• The display language is English in the two Windows VM.
• The Parallels Tools are installed on all VMs. I even reinstalled them on the Win 11 VM, just to make sure, without result.
• All articles which are mentioned online refer to Win 10, not Win 11. The language and keyboard settings are completely different in Win 11, compared to Win 10, and no article matches the Win 11 settings.
• There is no "Mac", "Apple" or "Parallels" option in the Win 11 settings. In fact, there is no "keyboard layout" option in Win 11 settings, just "languages" settings, which is quite disturbing.
• I have checked in the KeyboardLayoutSync is set to 1 in the config.pvs file for the Win 11 VM (I never touched those .pvs file but I just checked).

It is strange that no-one references Win 11 keyboard layout issue.
Any similar issue and solution?
Thanks

Hello Thierry,
Thank you for reaching out to Parallels.
Actually, you can change your keyboard layout in Windows 11.
Please follow the steps below:
1. Go to Settings > Time & Language > Language and Region
2. Under Preferred languages, click on the 3 dots (See screenshot below):

3. Select Language Options > Add a keyboard.
4. Choose French (Apple) - Parallels

Please try and let us know if the issue still persists.
Regards!

 

[ThierryL4]

Wow, it works, thanks.

The progression is absolutely counter-intuitive, with various types of interactions and hidden paths (no way to guess which direction toward the final target). I suppose that we should congratulate Microsoft for this non-sense. When you are used to the user-centric approach of the Mac, this is irritating.

It should really deserve an update of the article in the Parallels knowledge base. It currently only references Windows 10, which is very different (and a bit easier).

Thanks again